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Even With That Crappy Name, I Want the Asus Padfone

I’ve never actually touched the device, yet I’m enamored with it. I’m talking about the Asus Padfone. Aside from its ridiculous and silly name, this could be the perfect device. Or at the vary least, the beginning stages or blueprint for the perfect device(s). Not familiar with it? Watch the video below and then come back to us.

Why do I want the Asus Padfone so badly? Well first off, I’ll admit that tablets are just not my thing. I can’t find a place for them in my life even with as many times as I have tried nor do I want to shell out for the next barebones Android slate that will be upstaged in a month. However! If I could have a cheap shell of a tablet that I could simply snap my every day phone into, that’s a win. See, one of the problems with having a tablet and a phone separately, is that you sort of have two different lives. Cloud services have helped this a tad, but for the most part you have photos on one and not the other, some apps here but not there, text messages over there yet not here, and so on. If you could take your phone that has it all though, and simply dock it into a tablet shell, you just solved the problem, didn’t you?

Second, it has top of the line specs: 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, 1GB of RAM, 4.3″ qHD display, 16/32/64GB of storage, 8MP F2.2 camera, and runs Android 4.0. The battery inside the phone itself is only 1520mAh, but you get another 6600mAh out of the tablet dock which Asus claims will give you up to 66 hours of life. Think about that for a second.

Third, how cool is that pen that allows you to answer calls while in tablet mode? Phone docked and can’t get to it while it rings? If you have their little pen with microphone and speaker, and you can take the call through it.

Lastly (and probably most importantly), let’s not forget that while docked, the tablet would be able to use the data plan that your phone is already attached to, leaving you with a mobile phone and tablet experience on the go. No tethering involved, no separate data package for 4G on the tablet – nope, this is an all in one data machine. Well, assuming carriers don’t try to stop this action in fear that it may take off and continue to ruin their already incredibly low and embarrassing tablet sales numbers.

To me, this really is an amazing creation by Asus, maybe their best yet. They took Ice Cream Sandwich, the first version of Android to connect both phones and tablets, and then showed exactly what that means. As a phone, you get the phone version of Android 4.0. When docked, it automatically flips to the tablet UI version of it. It’s brilliant.

Now, if only we could get Asus to announce some sort of global rollout. We thought April for select countries, but it’s now mid-May and we are without it, even after seeing unboxings within the last week. From what we know, the word “LTE” has never been attached to it, so this may be another device that you can only get Stateside by ordering overseas and importing.

Do you share my enthusiasm for the Padfone? Is it too gimmicky? Is the name an automatic killer?

theres only ONE issue with this, ONLY ONE….!!! and im sure those around me would agree…

4G LTE – None
this is the only downside, that being said, who gives a crap give me the PHONE

jay mulhollen

Has anyone heard whom the potential carriers may be? THis would reduce the need for some of the accessories I got for my Bionic and also would no longer need my Asus Transformer setup either. Hurry and launch this thing already.

http://twitter.com/smacinskyjr Steve Macinsky Jr.

why no LTE? The processor does support it, so without LTE this means that Verizon wont be getting it.

Daniel7443

Im an Asus Prime owner and Galaxy Nexus owner, but I’ve longed for this device ever sice i laid eyes on it. They already have started to develop the Padfone 2, and we have yet to get our hands on the orginal.

fvqu

Asus has always made great motherboards, so I’m sure their phones will be great as well.

Austin

I truly love this concept, asus needs to get in the smartphone market asap

feztheforeigner

I want a cheap tablet that is basically a display to dock my phone into with a larger battery. Keep the storage and everything exactly the same so I don’t have to worry about apps/pics/data whatever transferring correctly. It would literally be the same thing.

Essentially, a mobile display that would connect by something like HDMI.

N8shon

Will this be on Verizon at all?

cole hartman

From the Problem Solvers T.V. show
PROBLEM! “stamp” SOLVED!

http://twitter.com/ncoulombe Nathan Coulombe

This I believe should be the architecture for all phone/tablets going forward. Period. There is no reason to have a tablet separate from your phone.

http://profiles.google.com/thelolotov Jacob Davis

I really want it, but I’m not willing to give up my hardware keyboard on my phone yet. Cmon Asus, make a separate slide-out keyboard attachment! Hell, anybody could do it, just do it!

http://www.facebook.com/people/Chad-Ramey/743058655 Chad Ramey

jaw drops !!!!!!!!!!!daaaa daaaaa daaaaaaaa daaaaaaaa daaaaaaaaaaaa

angermeans

And this is he reason that android tablets are on their way out. People are loosing interest. I picked up a Xoom at launch and after a month it lost its charm and just sat around. I then got the asus transformer prime and still thought it wasn’t a good device (never been a fan of asus hardware). I am a huge fan of high pixel density screens and although I left ios years ago for the nexus one (best phone ever?) and haven’t really looked back I wanted that screen on the new iPad so I felt I could just deal with ios.

After a month with this beast I am so happy with my decision. This is what I have been missing. The reason I couldn’t find a place for a tablet in my life and quickly got bored was that android tabs are nothing more than glorified multimedia consumption devices. I know this post won’t be popular on this site, and I won’t be getting rid of my galaxy nexus anytime soon. Hell, as long as a nexus device will land on Verizon I will always be happy in android land, but as far as tablets I have found what I have been missing. Apple really gets what a tablet is supposed to be. Even ios has quickly grown on me and I was so bored with it after I dumped a two and a half year everything apple affair for android when it was still just growing.

I write this not to start a war, but to maybe help others to open their eyes as I thnk a good bunch of people feel this way, or maybe just don’t know the grass is greener on the other side or maybe just can’t see through their hate of all things apple. I personally just love technology and have never been much of a fanboy as there is just too much great innovation going on and don’t want to miss out (although I love android I have always had and loved my MacBook pro).

Anyways I wanted to love the pad phone but I just can’t get past android as the OS. I wish ya luck Keller and let us know how it is. Until then I’ll see ya when we all pick up the rumored nexus tablet that hopefully will grace us with its presence later this year.

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